gluten-free eats

Once upon a time, I used to just gouge out a hunk of cookie dough with whatever spoon was handy, squish it into a ball—or not—drop it on my cookie sheet, and call it good. And it was fine actually. My cookies were about the same size. It all worked out one way or another.

But then, probably under the influence of Alton Brown, I started using a disher, and my whole cookie game changed. A disher is basically an ice cream scoop with a mechanism to eject whatever it is you're scooping. I love them because they give you uniform cookies, which means uniform cooking times and perfect cookies. I highly recommend using a disher when making cookies, especially if you're new to baking.

Dishers come in a bunch of sizes. The one I use is a #50, which is ~1.25 tablespoons, or 5/8 ounce. It doesn't look like much, but it makes a pretty decent-sized cookie.

Note: The bigger the number, the smaller the scoop. So a #60 disher is about 1 tablespoon or 9/16 ounce. Theoretically, the number reflects how many scoops it would take to fill a 32 ounce container, aka a quart. That doesn't help me because who even knows what a quart is, but it does explain why the larger numbers are the smaller sizes. Here's a handy chart.

When you scoop your disher into your dough, make sure you scrape off any excess on the side of the bowl so that once you eject it, you have a perfect half sphere of dough. Otherwise, the edges of your cookie will be wonky, thin and amoeba-like, as any extra dough will spread out and bake faster than the rest of the cookie.

Dishers work with every kind of drop cookie I make, from buttery Mexican wedding cakes (you don't have to roll them by hand anymore!), to dairy-free chocolate chip, to vegan almond gingersnaps. Because some cookies won't spread out much in the oven, like your vegan almond flour cookies, you'll learn you need to flatten their domes a bit before cooking so you have nice flat cookies rather than domely ones. Unless you want domed cookies, like in the case of the Mexican wedding cakes.

And dishers aren't just for cookies. You can use larger dishers to portion out muffin or cupcake batter. Use them for drop biscuits or scones or English muffins or hamburger buns—any time you have a dough or batter and you want the product to be uniform.

Of course, as much as I love them, I admit that dishers can be rough on the wrists and hands with all the repeated squeezing and their unforgiving metal handles. So I know they're not for everyone—they're not always for me—but they remove much of the guesswork when it comes to baking times, recipe yield, and even how many cookies you can fit on a sheet without them running into each other. I know this because I write all this stuff down for the next time I make a recipe, which is also something I recommend.

In short, if you like uniformity and consistent results—or you just want to take the guesswork out of baking—consider the disher.